The Discontinuity of Life

Our Creator placed enough discontinuity in just the right places, showing us that no natural process could have generated such a diverse creation.

Even though God has convinced every human being that He is Creator, fallen
mankind rejects God and worships idols of his own design (Romans 1).1 Throughout
history, each culture has replaced the truth of creation with its own lie, its
own creation myth. The Sumerians, the Egyptians, the Chinese—they all had their
own creation myths. The creation myth of our culture is evolution.

Each of these myths looks at only a limited amount of God’s creation. Evolution,
for example, sees similarities and proposes that all organisms are related by
common descent. Ancient cultures, in contrast, developed pantheons of diverse
gods to explain the diversity they saw in the universe.

He created the universe in such a way that no human would be confused about the Creator.

The God of the Bible, on the other hand, filled His creation with clear examples
of both similarities and differences. He created the universe in such a way
that no human would be confused about the Creator. The similarities, or continuity,
are evidence of One common Creator. The differences, or discontinuity, are evidence
of the diversity within the One Creator—three unique persons with one divine
nature. God made the similarities and differences in creation so obvious that
every human, even children, can see them (see Matthew 11:25; Romans 1:18–19;
and related verses).

When God planned His creation, He was strategic in His placement of continuity
and discontinuity. Foreknowing every creation myth that humans would ever devise,
He created in such a way as to falsify every one of them. He placed enough continuity
to demonstrate that multiple gods could not have constructed such a unified
creation. He also placed enough discontinuity in just the right places to show
that no natural process could have generated such a diverse creation.

A few examples of this discontinuity follow. Most are covered in standard biology
classes, but rarely is their significance recognized. All this discontinuity
points toward the triune Creator, who made every distinct kind of living thing
in six days, according to Genesis 1.

Bacterial Discontinuity

If evolution had occurred, it would have followed the simplest course—developing
first a single organism of the simplest form possible, and then in time, developing
more organisms and more complexity. Because the simplest known organism which
can exist without other organisms is a bacterium,2 it is assumed that evolution
would have begun with a bacterium and, in time, modified it into other bacteria
and finally into other organisms.

Yet differences (discontinuities) found among the bacteria seem to indicate
that this evolutionary story cannot be true. First, there is an enormous discontinuity
between even the simplest known bacterium and the earth chemistry from which
it is purported to have evolved.

Second, discontinuities separate all organisms into three major, distinct groups
(called domains)—the bacteria themselves are divided into two different domains
(Bacteria and Archaea) and all non-bacteria grouped into a third (Eukarya).
These realms are so very different that even many evolutionists believe they
evolved separately. The fact that bacteria make up two realms shows just how
fundamentally separate the various bacteria really are (more different, at this
scale, than any two plants or animals!).

Third, within one of these realms, Archaea, are discontinuous creatures known
as extremophiles. (Phileo is a Greek word for “love,” so an “extremophile”
is something that loves extremes—extremes that would kill any other organism.)
Every extremophile is vastly different from every other organism on earth, with
no viable common ancestor. Barophiles, for example, love the immense pressures
found under thousands of feet of rock; thermophiles love the temperature near
that of boiling water; and acidophiles love the acidity of fuming sulfuric acid.
Any one of these extreme conditions destroys the organic molecules in all other
organisms. Virtually every molecule of these extremophiles has to be specially
designed for the extreme conditions for which they were created.

Cellular Discontinuity

Further discontinuities divide the realms according to how they get the energy
they need to survive (what is called metabolism). Some organisms get energy
from organic compounds made by other organisms. Animals, for example, get energy
by ingesting, while fungi get it by absorbing. Other organisms get energy from
the sun—plants using certain wavelengths of radiation (light) and other organisms
using other wavelengths. Still others, such as many different bacterial groups,
get their energy in ways radically different from any plant, animal, or fungus.

Unusual energy sources range from gases, such as hydrogen or carbon monoxide
(which are poisonous to other organisms), to metals (such as iron or magnesium)
and rock-forming compounds (such as nitrite or phosphite). The differences are
so very foundational to how these organisms live, that it seems quite impossible
to evolve one into another.

Further discontinuities separate organisms according to how they move around—amoebas,
for example, move by changing cell shape; paramecia move by tiny cilia; and
still others move by a long flagellum. Other discontinuities separate organisms
according to how they build “armor” to protect themselves—for example, mollusks
use carbonate; radiolarians use silica (glass); and arthropods use stable organic
molecules.

Animal Discontinuity

Discontinuity also abounds within each of these groups. Discontinuities, for
example, divide the animal kingdom into about three dozen distinct groups, called
phyla.

Consider just a few of the profound differences between phyla. Chordates have
skeletons inside their bodies, whereas arthropods have skeletons outside their
bodies. Even among animals that protect themselves with very specific armor
plates, such as two carbonate shells, different phyla often put them together
in radically different ways: clams place the shells on the sides of their bodies,
while brachiopods place them on the front and back of their bodies. Sponges
are identical, or symmetric, in every direction around a line, while echinoderms,
such as starfish, are symmetric in five directions around a line, and worms
are symmetric along a plane.

Looking deeper, discontinuity can also be found within phyla. There is such
discontinuity between turtles and all other reptiles (for instance, turtles
have shoulder blades inside their body cavity) and between bats and all other
mammals that evolutionary transitions are not only unknown, but sometimes even
difficult to imagine.

These are but a few examples of the discontinuity that abounds among life-forms.
This pervasive discontinuity is both a challenge to the creation myth of evolution
and a manifestation of the Creator’s true nature.

Answers Magazine

January – March 2009

2009 is “the year of Darwin”— the 200th anniversary of his birth and the 150th anniversary of The Origin of Species. Learn what drove this man to develop his controversial belief system and read leading creationists as they share what we’ve discovered after 150 years of analyzing Darwin’s “dangerous idea.”

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Footnotes

“Bacteria” is used here informally to refer
to all single-celled organisms that lack a cell nucleus. With this informal
use of the word I am including the group of single-celled organisms known as
archaea, not technically a part of the monera (the true bacteria). This larger
group (archaea + monera) is officially called prokaryota, but I am avoiding
this term because of its evolutionary etymology (it assumes that these organisms
lived before single-celled organisms with nuclei). Plus, the differences between
monera and archaea are rather subtle (only at the biochemical level).

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Answers in Genesis is an apologetics ministry, dedicated to helping Christians defend their faith and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ effectively. We focus on providing answers to questions about the Bible—particularly the book of Genesis—regarding key issues such as creation, evolution, science, and the age of the earth.